An imaging device capable of capturing a motion picture of an existing television size and a high-quality still image has recently been proposed.
However, as described in JP-A-2005-057378, a related-art imaging device has two systems, each of which consists of capturing unit and buffering unit used for concurrently capturing a motion picture and a still picture. However, this method encounters a problem of an increase in a circuitry scale and a cost hike.
In order to solve this problem, JP-A-2005-197910 describes an imaging device that, during capture of a motion picture, records a frame number assigned to the motion picture—which is now in the course of being captured—when a shutter button is pressed to photograph a still image. High resolution operation is performed by means of: taking a frame designated by the frame number as a core frame to be imparted with high resolution; and taking frames straddling the core frame as reference frames used for the high resolution operation. The imaging device enables photographing of a high-resolution still image of a desired moment without involvement of a substantial increase in the amount of processing performed during capture of a motion picture and in circuitry scale.
However, according to the above described method, the reference frames, which straddle the core frame, are not optimal, which in turn poses a limitation in operation for imparting high resolution to the still image.
As mentioned above, the related art involves a necessity for two systems, each of which consists of capturing unit and buffering unit used for concurrently capturing a motion picture and a still picture, and encounters a problem of a failure to reduce a circuitry scale. Moreover, a frame number assigned to a motion picture—which has been captured at the moment of the shutter button being pressed to capture a still image—is recorded. Subsequently, high resolution operation is performed by means of: taking the frame designated by the frame number as a core frame to be imparted with high resolution; and taking frames straddling the core frame as reference frames used for the high resolution operation. According to this method, restraints are imposed on the reference frames straddling the core frame, and limitations are encountered in imparting high resolution to the core frame.